


1969

by secooper87



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 1960s, Action/Adventure, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Comedy, Crossing Timelines, Funny, Humor, Multi-Era, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secooper87/pseuds/secooper87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey-ness has never been wibbly-wobbly timey-whimier, as Martha and the Doctor meet Amy Pond and try to work out what's really happening in 1969 (and honestly, how many regenerating psychopaths can there be out there?). Massive spoilers for Seasons 6 and 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Amy Pond had not expected to come face to face with the alien monsters the moment she arrived in London. She still had River's Vortex Manipulator strapped around her wrist, and if she knew the first thing about how to work it, she could use it to escape. Unfortunately for her, she didn't.

The tempting thing to do would be to look at where she had landed, examine the area for possible avenues of escape. But Amy knew better than that. The moment her eyes left the alien creature, she would forget that she had ever seen it. She made a small tick on her arm. "I know who you are," she warned it.

The mouthless alien was standing not five feet away from Amy, examining her through bony eyes. It tilted its head, as if contemplating what to do with her. It didn't seem at all frightened. It just seemed… curious. As if trying to determine how best to squash an ant. Amy began backing away.

The alien made a noise that sounded half way between a scream and a laugh. Amy tried to back away faster but backed right into a wall. She almost looked around, but stopped herself just in time. No, Amy. Eye contact. The moment you turn around, you'll forget that you're in danger. You won't even remember enough to run. Safer to keep the alien in sight. But as the alien began to advance on her, she wondered just how safe that was.

A high pitch whining sound tore through the air. The Silence dropped to its knees, clutching its head. Amy's eyes opened wide. She could have sworn she recognized the sound, but… of course, that was impossible. He was locked up in Area 51.

The sound shut off, and she heard an unfamiliar voice say, "Well, now. What are you?"

The man who emerged into her line of sight was tall, skinny, with brown spiky hair and a brown pinstripe suit. He pointed—was that? It had to be, but Amy hadn't seen it for years—a blue-tipped sonic screwdriver at the Silence as if it were a deadly weapon.

The Silence looked up at him defiantly, not saying a word.

"Not very talkative, then, are you?" said the man. He raised the sonic screwdriver a little higher. "Identify yourself, species and planet of origin, in accordance with Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

The Silence still said nothing.

"They're called the Silence," said Amy. "Just… don't turn your back. Keep it in your line of sight."

The man turned, instinctively, and a momentary look of confusion flickered across his face. Then his eyes fixed on Amy, looking her up and down carefully. He noticed the vortex manipulator still strapped to her wrist, and raised an eyebrow. "That's not 20th century Earth technology," he pointed out. He glanced back at her outfit. "And your clothes…" He furrowed his brow. "What are those marks?" he asked.

Amy was still keeping most of her attention on the Silence in the background. It was advancing, a hand outstretched, as if getting ready to shoot a bolt of energy at the man in front of her.

"Doctor!" came a cry from Amy's left. "Behind you!"

The man spun around to face the creature again. He flicked his sonic screwdriver back on, and this time the Silence fell to its knees.

"Nice one, Martha," said the man, turning around to face the woman who had just entered Amy's line of sight. She was pretty, dark skin, black hair, wearing jeans and a maroon jacket. She was carrying one of the strangest bits of machinery that Amy had ever seen. It was a large red box, with all sorts of bits and bobs and wires poking out. The man had that momentary look of confusion on his face, but this time, it stayed put. He snatched the device from Martha, and examined it closely. "Now that's odd."

"Doctor…" said Martha, her eyes still glued on the creature.

"We've just jumped seconds into the future. I mean, a temporal disturbance like that, you'd expect all sorts of lights and bleeps and beepy things, but there's just… nothing. Zip, zap, nada…"

"It's not a temporal disturbance," said Amy, feeling a little frustrated by the situation. "You just can't remember what happened."

The man turned back to Amy. "What, with a memory like mine? Doubt it. Take something pretty strong to break through these mental defenses. Big Psychic Hamster of Katrisalta 8 couldn't even get close to…"

"Doctor, behind you!" screamed Martha, as the Silence got back to its feet.

The Doctor spun around, and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the alien once again. He seemed genuinely intrigued by the strangeness of the situation, as if he were trying to work out a particularly complex puzzle. "Hang on, hang on. Why can't I remember you? Creepy little thing like you, that should be something I remember."

"You only remember while you're looking at it," said Amy. "The moment you turn your back, you don't remember anything that happened."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Well, that shouldn't happen," said the Doctor. "It's impossible. Well, I say impossible. More like improbable. Well, I say improbable…"

"Doctor," warned Martha.

"Yes, sorry, got a bit sidetracked, there. Well, you know me, just rambling away, making connections, putting things together in my head." The Doctor began strolling towards the creature, his stride completely relaxed and nonchalant. It was, Amy thought, exactly what her own Doctor would have done. This pinstripe model stopped just before the creature, and studied it, carefully. "What are you doing here on Planet Earth?"

"We have always been here," said the Silence.

"Have you, now?" asked the Doctor, still studying it with the same fascinated curiosity that Amy had seen her own Doctor use. "Been lurking in the shadows throughout humanity's past, using them to do all your dirty work? Or perhaps humans aren't the prize at all. Perhaps they're just the bait." The Doctor gave a half grin. "Because that mind wipe of yours—that wasn't designed for humans. Oh, no. That was designed for Time Lords. And the Face of Boe told me… well, basically, he told me something I'm certain is impossible. Except it's not, is it? You didn't come to Earth to hunt humans at all. You're here for a Time Lord."

The Silence twisted its head, regarding the Doctor. "Perceptive as ever, Doctor."

"Oh, got a bit of a reputation, now, have I?" said the Doctor. He was grinning ear-to-ear. "Like a bit of flattery, me. Martha, you should take lessons."

"Yeah, probably not the best time," said Martha.

Amy saw the Silence as it raised its hand towards the Doctor again. She felt her heart speed up. No, she could not go through this again. She'd just seen the Doctor die—and now, here he was, about to die again, before she'd even met him!

"Doctor!" she screamed at him.

The Doctor actually jumped at this, and swung around. That momentary confusion passed across his face again. "That's odd," he said. He turned back. "Martha, did that Timey…?" he trailed off, as he caught sight of the Silence again. He gritted his teeth. "Oh, I really hate that."

The Silence's hand was sparking by now, and Amy was sure that the Doctor was going to die. But then the Silence, for no apparent reason, lowered its hand, and backed away.

"You are not yet ready," said the Silence.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked the Doctor, his voice growing a little edgy.

"You are the beginning and the end," said the Silence.

The Doctor visibly shuddered at this.

"Doctor, what does that mean?" asked Martha.

"No idea," said the Doctor, a bit confused. "Odd, that." He regained his composure instantly, as if nothing had ever shaken him, and stared at the Silence, with menace in his eyes. "So, here for a Time Lord, then," he said. "Who is it? Who survived? And why don't I know about them?"

The Silence said nothing.

"Oh, is the Silence giving me the 'silent treatment'?" said the Doctor, his grin returning.

The Silence turned, and regarded Martha. Martha began backing away. "Doctor…" she said.

"Keep calm," said the Doctor. "He's not the only one who's taken an interest in this temporal energy surge." The Silence turned back, and the Doctor stared straight into the hollow cavities of the creature's eyes. "Oh, you don't like that, do you?"

The Silence tilted its head, regarding him, cautiously.

The Doctor grinned at it, and put his hands in his pockets. Then, all of a sudden, he shouted, "Martha, other girl, blink!"

Amy Pond blinked.


	2. Chapter 2

Amy Pond had not expected to come face to face with alien monsters the moment she arrived in London. She still had River’s Vortex Manipulator strapped around her wrist, and if she knew the first thing about how to work it, she could use it to escape. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t.

She tried to back away, but she found that she was up against a wall. She remembered the thing she saw right in front of her — remembered it like it happened only yesterday. That day on the Byzantium. The way her hand had turned to stone. That time she sat alone in the forest, with her eyes closed, hoping they wouldn’t find her.

To her right, Amy heard someone give a grunt of annoyance. Not alone, then. Okay, she could deal with that. She told herself to keep cool. The Doctor always talked his way out of these sorts of situations. She could do it, too. She just had to figure out some way to explain how she'd appeared out of thin air.

She heard a loud banging sound, and nearly jumped when an unfamiliar voice cried, “Nothing, absolutely nothing! A temporal distortion that big, there should have been something!” Then a pause. “I just said that, didn't I? We've had this conversation before. Some sort of déjà vu, I suspect. Which is odd, actually. Didn't know I _could_ get déjà vu. Fun word, déjà vu. French. Love the French. Went to a lovely shindig with Madame de Pompadour, but Rose wouldn't let me keep the horse…. Where was I? Ah, right. Temporal distortions. Weeping angels. Déjà vu.” The man clapped. “Alright, then. Martha, keep an eye on that one for me. I'm going to go check on our latest timey-whimey traveler.”

The face that popped into Amy's line of sight was slender, with expressive brown eyes, and pointed eyebrows. Amy shifted her gaze away from the weeping angel, and towards the man now perched in front of her. She jumped when she noticed the thin metal tube in his hand.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked.

The man lifted up the sonic screwdriver. “What? This? Built it myself. Like it, do you?” He gave a cheeky smile. “Better question. What’s a twenty-first century girl like yourself doing with a fifty-first century vortex manipulator?”

“I…” Amy began, but she had too many thoughts swirling around in her head. She took a few deep breaths, and tried to gather herself together. “A friend gave it to me,” she said at last.

“A friend from the fifty-first century, with access to time travel technology and a working knowledge of the Weeping Angels?” said the man. “Don’t suppose your friend is a young man — well, I say young. Not actually young. More like… young looking. Young looking man, brown floppy hair, big on dancing, who wanders around time and space wearing suspenders and a ridiculous coat, and has a slight problem with death?”

Amy’s eyes widened. She thought about the Doctor, back in Area 51. The description fit him to a tee (well, except the bit about dancing — although Amy suspected this was only because, after seeing the way the Doctor danced at her wedding, Amy had forbid him to ever try it again). But what he said, about the problem with death — how could he possibly know about that? Was it him in that astronaut suit, on the beach? Had this man killed the Doctor?

“How did you know?” Amy gaped.

The man sighed, tucking the screwdriver into one of his coat pockets. “Long story. Well, I say long. More confusing than long. All to do with Daleks and Bad Wolves and Reality TV.” He gave her a sudden smile, which lit up his face, and offered her a hand. “Hello,” he said. “I’m the Doctor.”

Amy’s eyes opened even wider. Everything started clicking into place. The sonic screwdriver. The clothing that seemed so familiar. The rambling and the namedropping and the general craziness that seemed to emanate from him. “Oh, my God,” Amy breathed. “You’re the Doctor.” She squinted at him. “How old are you?”

The Doctor scratched his head. “Blimey, that was quick. Not a minute after we meet and you're off with the personal questions. Wait five minutes, and you'll start snogging me.”

"For your information, I'm married," said Amy. "Age. Now."

The Doctor hesitated. “Martha, how old am I?”

“Thirty-five,” said Martha.

“Yes, that's right,” said the Doctor, gesturing back at Martha, awkwardly. “What she said.”

Amy made a face. “You do realize that most humans don’t have to ask other people how old they are,” she pointed out. She folded her arms across her chest. “Out with it. Real age.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Well, well. Jack has been talking, hasn’t he? Nine hundred and three. Tenth regeneration.” He looked at her. “That alright?”

Amy thought this all over in her mind. He was 906 when she first met him. When she watched him die, he was 1,103. So this must have been how the Doctor looked just before he crashed down on her doorstep. He was even wearing the same tie, trousers, and blue shirt that he'd worn when she'd first seen him! She had learned a little about regeneration from River, but there were already way too many Doctors doing way too many things, and all the timelines were getting mixed up in her head.

“Doctor,” said the woman — Martha, the Doctor had called her — in a warning voice.

The Doctor spun around. “What? Oh. Right. The angel. Well…” He turned back to Amy. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name.”

“Amy?” Amy offered, tentatively. She wasn’t sure if she should be giving her name to this younger Doctor. After all, the Doctor hadn’t recognized her when he first met her. But back then she had only been a little girl, still just little Amelia Pond. So maybe she could get away with it if she wasn't too specific.

“Amy, Amy. Knew someone named Amy, once. Helped save the universe with her. Left her on…” An expression of terrible sadness and loneliness flickered across his face. Yep, definitely the Doctor. Then he gave her another grin, and a wink. “Still, Amy. Lovely name. Amy what, exactly?”

“Just Amy,” said Amy, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

“Just Amy?” the Doctor asked.

“Well, you’re just the Doctor, why can’t I be just Amy?” Amy snapped.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Touché,” he said. He gave her a warm smile, and offered her his hand. “Shall we go?”

Amy took in a deep breath and told herself to stay calm. “I’m sort of on this… mission,” she said. “For my friend.”

The Doctor regarded her for a moment. "Are you, now?" he asked. "Wouldn't happen to be related to that massive energy spike that's due in about seven months?"

"No it's… hold on, how do you know about it if it's going to happen in seven months?" asked Amy.

"More importantly, how do they know about it?" asked the Doctor, knocking on the stone statue beside him. He looked it over, carefully, then looked back at Amy. "And for that matter, how does Jack?"

Amy almost asked who Jack was, but stopped herself just in time. Jack — he'd said that name earlier. Apparently, this earlier Doctor was getting her Doctor confused with someone else. She thought that might be just as well.

The Doctor then beamed. He clapped his hands. “Right!” he said. “Missions! Love missions! Brilliant! Molto benne! You might as well say missions are my middle name.”

“Listen, glad you two are getting chummy over there, but could you wrap it up?” said Martha. “My eyes are starting to water.”

The Doctor took Amy’s hand in his, as he spun around to face the angel. “Right then,” he said. “Everyone got their eyes on the angel? No one feel like blinking? No? Brilliant. I suppose in that case, allons-y!”


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you think that this friend of Amy's—Jack or whatever his name is—is the person who sent us to Wester Drumlins in the first place?" Martha asked.

They were now back in the flat that the Doctor and Martha were renting. Apparently, their Tardis was back in 2007, and they were laying a very complicated set of clues down for a woman named Sally Sparrow to find, so that she could send the Tardis back to them in 1969. In the meantime, the Doctor and Martha were grounded in 1969, with only the items in the Doctor's pockets and a packet of information from Sally Sparrow to help them.

"Well," said the Doctor, tilting his chair back, "seems likely enough. It had to be someone who knew exactly where and when I'd be. Bit tricky, that. Not sure precisely how anyone could do it…"

"Hold on, someone sent you to Wester Drumlins?" Amy asked.

"Unfortunately," said Martha, rolling her eyes. She drew something out of the packet and handed it to Amy. "We found this taped to the door of our time machine, so naturally, we had to check it out. We didn't know we'd run into the Weeping Angels."

Amy stared at the blue envelope in her hands. Tardis blue. Inside was a set of spacio-temporal coordinates. She turned it over. There was a number five on the back.

"Yeah, we couldn't figure out the number either," said Martha.

"I always rather liked fives," mused the Doctor. "Good old number five. Good things always come in fives, did you know that, Martha?"

"Three weeks ago it was pairs," said Martha.

The Doctor made a face. "Pears? Can't stand pears. Why would I say pears? Yech!"

"Not 'pears', I meant… oh, never mind."

Amy had started looking through the rest of the packet, hoping to find more clues. Something to help her figure out how to save the Doctor's life. She examined the transcript, the list of movies, the photographs of the Wester Drumlins walls. Nothing. Just the blue envelope.

"So, what's all this about a mission, then?" asked the Doctor. "Anything to do with the marks on your arms?"

Amy looked down at her arms, and remembered.

"There are these creatures," she said. "They are all over the place, at least in the United States, but no one knows because you don't remember them. While you're looking at them, you remember. But the moment you look away, you forget everything that's happened while you were watching them. Even you, Doctor."

"Rubbish," said the Doctor.

"You know, that might explain a lot," said Martha. "He keeps going on about how we're always jumping forwards in time, but the Timey-Whimey Detector never seems to pick it up."

"Martha, unless it was specifically designed for Time Lords, there is no way that…" the Doctor trailed off. He pulled the Timey-Whimey Detector over to him, and shoved a pair of black spectacles on his nose. "So that was what he meant," he muttered, poking at the innards of the device.

"Does that mean that you're going to stop mucking about at home and go out and get a proper job?" asked Martha.

"These aliens," said the Doctor, pointedly ignoring Martha. "All across the States, you say?"

"Yeah," said Amy. "And possibly further. The… my friend wants us to go across the world and see if they're everywhere or if they're just in the United States. He wants to know if these are invaders or an occupation force."

The Doctor scratched the back of his head. "Well, if Martha's right," he said, "and, let's face it she probably is. Martha's brilliant, after all—I'd say genius, but I'm in the room. At any rate, if Martha's right, and those temporal-jumps-that-aren't-temporal-jumps are actually memory lapses, then your monsters are certainly here. I can guess why, actually. Massive energy spike like that should attract all sorts to planet Earth. They'd be mostly pilot fish, at first, but I suspect it's only a matter of time before others move in."

Martha frowned. "Hang about, you said that there was a temporal jump back at that warehouse when we picked up Amy," she said. "Does that mean…"

"Oh, yes!" cried the Doctor. "There was one right under our noses and we didn't even know it!" He frowned. "Well, that certainly explains who the Weeping Angel was headed for."

"But if this memory altering alien got touched by that Weeping Angel, it would have gone back into the past," said Martha. "You don't think that's how they conquered Earth in the first place? Because we sent an army of them back in time using these Weeping Angels?"

"Nah," said the Doctor. "It was just one, after all. I doubt one alien is really going to make all that big a difference."

Amy was starting to get a horrible feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. "Doctor, you said that you've been picking up a lot of these temporal jumps. How many of those temporal jumps happened around Weeping Angels?"

The Doctor thudded the front legs of his chair against the ground. "Ah," he said.

Martha and Amy looked at one another. They knew they were both thinking the same thing.

"So we've inadvertently allowed an alien race to conquer humanity?" Martha asked.

The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he gave Martha a manic grin that didn't reach his eyes. "Course not. If I'd done something like that, there'd probably be some future me running around trying to fix it."  
Amy felt her heart stop.

"Besides," the Doctor continued, "that sort of thing always leaves a scar. You know, some sort of massive outpouring of temporal energy, all at once…" he paused.

"Like that massive temporal energy spike you've been going on about since we got here?" asked Martha.

The Doctor blew a breath out of his cheeks. "Nah," he said, eventually. "Can't be. Spike's centered in the States, not here. New York, if I'm not mistaken. Got another smaller spike over here, round about the same time, but, well, I already know about that one." He shot Martha a charming smile. "Besides, we'd know if we'd inadvertently wound up causing something like that. I mean, the temporal leakage from that kind of chrononic distortion loop would attract all sorts of temporal scavengers. Saw this before with Rose. Big, nasty anti-time type creatures swooping through the air, all sorts of alien types pouring in from across the cosmos to feed off potential temporal energy…" He trailed off again.

"Like the Weeping Angels," said Martha.

"Possibly," the Doctor admitted. "Quite possibly." He looked over at Amy, his eyes glued to the vortex manipulator around her wrist. "Although it doesn't have to be _my_ interference that caused this sort of temporal instability. It could be, say, any secret government institution that enjoys messing around with potentially dangerous technology it doesn't understand."

Amy looked up at the Doctor, and shivered. She had seen the Doctor angry before. She'd seen him intimidate his enemies with only a look. But she never expected to be on the receiving end of it.

And then, all of a sudden, the darkness was gone from the Doctor's face, and he gave her a charming smile. "Well, now, Amy. Big comfy flat here, with walls and doors and everything. How would you like to spend the night?"


	4. Chapter 4

From the moment she’d seen that suspicion and darkness in the Doctor’s eyes, Amy had been trying to get away from him. She needed to call up River and figure out how to get out of there. Every second she spent around the younger Doctor was dangerous — not just for him, but for herself, as well. He might trust her with his very existence in the future, but in his past, he didn’t trust her an inch.

Was this how River always felt?

Amy finally managed to slip out of the apartment around dinnertime, and the moment she was no longer in the Doctor’s sight, she began to run. She ducked into a back alley, where she was hoping no one could see her, pulled out her mobile and called River.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” said Amy.

“You only just arrived,” said River. “Are they after you?”

“Not them,” said Amy. She looked around, as if expecting the younger Doctor to show up at any minute. He was nowhere to be seen. “Someone else,” she whispered.

“Someone else? Who else? Who in England in 1969 could possibly…?” River trailed off. “It’s the Doctor, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Amy.

River said nothing for a moment. “Is he…?”

“Younger,” Amy said. “And… different looking. Shorter hair, thinner face, brown eyes. River, it's a disaster. It's like, he's the same, but he's completely different. He likes baked beans, and yogurt, and bread and butter. And he doesn’t think that bow-ties are cool! I asked him, and he looked at me like I was an idiot.” She felt her breath coming short and fast. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ve got to leave right away,” said River. “You’re walking on an active mine-field right now, Amy. Anything you say could completely destroy his future. Even if you just mention that you know him, it could destabilize the timeline.”

“But we’ve both seen what happens in that timeline,” Amy protested. “River, I know this could screw everything up, but what if _this one_ puts a stop to it?”

"It's still the Doctor," said River. "He's not going to go out of his way to mess up time. Not even to save a future incarnation."

"But the blue envelopes," said Amy. "River, he's got one, too! Number five! This has to be some elaborate plan. Maybe we can undo…"

“We can't,” said River. “I told you, time doesn't work like that. If you try fiddling around with it too much, you'll wind up making it worse. Listen, just forget about all of this, and twist the dial on the right side of the manipulator until it says 075557329. That should get you to Calais.”

Amy looked down at her wrist to start changing around the settings on her vortex manipulator, but stopped. She stared. The gizmo around her wrist looked completely dead — like a digital watch without a battery. She began turning the dial that River had indicated, but nothing happened.

“Something wrong?” asked a voice from the shadows.

Amy looked up, and gaped. The Doctor — the younger Doctor, the one who didn’t trust her — was stepping into the light, his hands in his pockets, looking very nonchalant. He wasn’t smiling this time, though. He was looking at her with mild disapproval.

Amy said nothing. She was hearing River through the phone, asking her if she was all right, if she was seeing the creatures, if she’d made the jump already.

Before she could do anything, the Doctor had snatched the phone from her hand and placed it by his ear. “Torchwood, I assume?”

He took the phone away from his ear, and looked at it. Apparently, the call had ended. Then he looked back at Amy. “I guess that answers my question,” he said.

Amy was going through her phone call in her mind. How much had he heard? How much did he know? She really, really hoped he hadn't overheard anything that might jeopardize his future. But would that really be such a terrible thing? After all, she _wanted_ to change his future. She just wanted to make sure she made it better, and not worse. Amy felt her head spinning. This was way too confusing. The best thing would be to get out of there, before she said something wrong. She was in a dangerous situation, and she didn’t have as much experience as River at handling it.

“I’m… I’m not…” she protested. She swallowed. “I'm not trying to steal your Tardis or anything. I’m just here to help my friend.”

“Your friend with the brown floppy hair and the suspenders who has a problem with death?” the Doctor asked.

“That’s right,” said Amy. She tried to remember what name he’d conjured up before. “Jack.”

“Except it's not Jack,” said the Doctor. He walked a little closer, and raised an eyebrow. “I worked that out fairly quickly. You don't know anything about Jack, after all. And you seem far too upset over the possibility of his death for it to be Jack.”

Amy said nothing.

“Thing is, you may not know anything about Jack,” said the Doctor. “But you do know an awful lot about me. Why would that be, 'Just Amy'?”

Amy could feel herself start to back away.

The Doctor looked down at her phone, turned it over, and slipped off the back. He slid a pair of glasses onto his nose, and started to examine her phone’s inner workings. “Oh, now look at that. Cor, that is clever. Very clever. Whoever designed this is almost as brilliant as me.”

Amy stopped herself from rolling her eyes. For someone who claimed to be such a genius, the Doctor could still be a complete idiot sometimes.

“Doctor, I need to go,” said Amy. “I’m on a mission…”

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and gave the back of her phone a quick buzz. “Right,” he said, tossing it back to her. “That should undo the damage. And as for going…” He looked deep into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I can’t let you go. I’ll give you a lift home when Martha and I get the Tardis back, but until then, I’m afraid you’re stranded.”

“You don’t understand,” Amy tried.

The Doctor put his hands back in his pockets. “Well, then, 'Just Amy',” he said. “Explain it to me.”

Amy opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m just… on a mission. For a friend.”

“A friend who is currently in the United States, right at the focus of the space-time distortion,” said the Doctor. “A friend who has obviously done something unbelievably thick which is destabilizing the entire space-time continuum. A friend who has a 'problem with death' — or maybe, he's just trying to prevent his own?” He came a little closer to Amy, a seriousness burned onto his facial features. “I didn’t bring the Weeping Angels here, Amy. I didn’t cause this temporal instability. But I have a feeling you know who did.”

“What?” said Amy. “No! Listen, Doctor, I can’t tell you what’s going on, but you have to trust me.”

“Trust you?” the Doctor said, a harsh bitterness leaking through his voice. “You want me to trust you? After you opened the void and nearly collapsed two universes, you want me to trust you? After you took away everything that ever mattered to me and then left the Earth ready and waiting for the Racnoss to feed? Oh, that’s rich.”

“No, I never… I didn't…" Amy stuttered. "Look, I’m not Torchwood or whatever you think I am. Please. You just have to… I mean, I’m really not good at this…”

The Doctor gave a small sigh, brushing a hand through his hair. Then he paused. He looked back at Amy, examining her carefully. Before she knew what was happening, the Doctor was beside her, her arm in his hand. His touch was gentle, cold — so familiar and yet so different from the man she knew. He was staring at her arm through his glasses, wrinkling his nose in thought.

Amy tugged her arm away from him. “Do you mind?” she asked.

His gaze shifted back to her eyes. “Amy,” he said, very softly. “I think we should run.”

“Why?”

“Because I just felt a temporal jump,” said the Doctor, “and you have another mark on your arm.”

Amy felt her eyes go wide. And she ran.


	5. Chapter 5

Amy was now seated in the cramped little apartment, being towered over by a very angry Doctor and a slightly worried-looking Martha. As the seconds ticked by, Amy was growing more and more sure that she really, really shouldn't be here. The Doctor was far too smart to be bluffed, no matter what incarnation. Amy knew that (after all, her own Doctor had known there was something wrong from the moment he picked them up to go to 1969), but at least her own Doctor had trusted her. This Doctor certainly didn't. River must have had to do this at some point. How had River gotten the Doctor to trust her?

"So, who is it?" asked the Doctor.

Amy tried to sound brave. "Who's who?"

"Your friend," said the Doctor. "The other Time Lord. Oh, don't look so shocked." He picked up a piece of machinery, and waved it in front of her face. "The amount of time distortion around here, it's surprising I didn't work it out sooner. That energy spike — it's Artron energy. You don't get that much Artron energy in one spot unless a Time Lord is regenerating. That means that either your friend is a Time Lord — one who knows I'm around, but doesn't want me to know that he's around — or, he's kidnapped a Time Lord. So, I repeat, who is your friend, Amy?"

"I really, really can't tell you," said Amy. "I know you don't trust me, but you have to."

"I don't like walking into traps, Amy," said the Doctor. "And this whole thing is starting to look like one big trap to me. Because if the Face of Boe is wrong (and I know he has to be wrong) and there isn't another Time Lord out there, then that spike in seven months is going to be me. And if I am going to die, I at least want to know why."

Amy felt her stomach lurch.

"Doctor," said Martha. She put a hand on his arm, and his expression softened immediately. She nodded towards Amy. "She's not well. She hasn't been well since she got here." She crouched by Amy, and began to give her a medical examination. The Doctor stepped back, still watching Amy with suspicion.

Martha frowned. "Is there any chance that you're pregnant?" she asked.

Amy hesitated. "No," she said, a little too quickly.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?" he said. "Because Martha isn't usually wrong about this sort of thing."

"I thought I was," said Amy. "But I'm not. It was just… you know. Nerves."

"Doctor, do you have a setting on the Sonic Screwdriver that can tell us?" asked Martha.

The Doctor pulled out the blue-tipped Sonic Screwdriver, and scanned Amy quickly. He examined the results, frowned, hit it against his hand, and scanned her again. "Inconclusive," he said. He peered at it, closely. "That's not right. Shouldn't be inconclusive." He looked up at Amy. "This husband of yours… he is human, isn't he?"

"Yes," said Amy.

"Doesn't happen to be a bit on the heavy side with a zipper running along his forehead?" asked the Doctor.

"What? No!" said Amy.

"Well, that's one possibility down," muttered the Doctor. He tried the scan again, but seemed equally dissatisfied with the results. "I could get a better reading on the Tardis, assuming we can ever get it back."

"We're going to get it back," Martha reassured him. "But if she is pregnant, you better make sure the Tardis doesn't shake around too much when we take her home. You don't want to cause a miscarriage."

"It's not an issue," said the Doctor. "If she's pregnant, I'm not taking her home."

Martha shot him an annoyed look. "Doctor!"

"Why not?" Amy demanded.

The Doctor looked askance at Amy, but gave his reply to Martha. "It's 1969," he said, quietly. "They'll have already come and gone by now. If I take her back to your time, Martha, they'll take the baby away from her."

"What are you talking about?" asked Martha.

"I can't stop what happens to the children of Earth in 2009," the Doctor said, his grip clenching around the screwdriver. "I know what happens, when, how, and why, but I can't change it. If I take Amy back, I can't guarantee that her child will make it out of that incident alive. You can't ask me to condemn a child like that. I won't do it."

"I'm not from 2009," said Amy.

The Doctor and Martha both turned to her. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Martha asked, in a gentle voice, "When are you from, Amy?"

"I'm from 2011," said Amy.

The Doctor's cold demeanor melted a little. He slipped the sonic screwdriver back into his pocket, and shifted from foot to foot, considering. "It's still not a good idea," grumbled the Doctor. "I've never had a pregnant woman on board the Tardis before. Anything could happen."

Martha gave the Doctor an exasperated look, but then smiled at Amy, reassuringly. "Doctor, can you give us some time alone, please?"

The Doctor didn't seem particularly happy about the idea, but the moment he looked at Martha, an undeniably guilty look flashed across his face. With no further ado, he picked up his Timey-Whimey Detector and left the flat.

Amy gave a sigh of relief when the Doctor left. Martha noticed it.

"I know the Doctor can be a little intimidating," said Martha. "He means well, though. He's a bit… edgy at the moment." She paused, staring off into the distance. "Your friend," she said, a little more quietly. "It's him, isn't it? Your friend is the Doctor. A future Doctor."

Amy slumped in her chair. "Yes," she confessed. There were tears in her eyes, as she looked back up at Martha.

"How did you know?"

"The way you look at him," said Martha, a friendly smile on her face. "I know that look." She sighed and offered Amy a box of tissues.

Amy took one and blew her nose, gratefully. "I'm not usually like this," she said. "I don't know what came over me."

"Hormonal imbalance," Martha diagnosed. "Are you sure you're not pregnant?"

"I'm really, really not," said Amy. She wiped away her tears. "Martha, the Doctor said he didn't know if it was a good idea for a pregnant woman to be on his ship. If… I mean, I'm not, but if I _was_ pregnant…"

"He's just worried you're going to get a craving and eat all of his bananas," said Martha. "I wouldn't worry about it. If it was dangerous, your own Doctor would never have let you come with him."

Amy had to acknowledge that Martha had a point. She still felt uneasy, although she wasn't really sure why. Amy shrugged it off. "Doesn’t matter, really," said Amy. "Since I'm not pregnant anyways." She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. "It must be hard for the Doctor, being stuck here without his ship."

"Yeah," said Martha. "Hard for _him_ …" She trailed off, then blinked, and shook her head. "Sorry, I've just… got a lot on my mind, at the moment. Look, that energy spike, in seven months, is it really him? Is that really when he's going to die? I mean, I know he said he doesn't die, he regenerates but… is that when it happens?"

"I have no idea," said Amy, truthfully.

"Oh," said Martha. She looked a little crestfallen. "I was hoping that you'd know. You being from his future and all." She paused a moment, and frowned. "I suppose even if you did know, you wouldn't be able to tell me."

"Probably not," Amy agreed.

Martha gave her a sad look. "Sorry, it was just a thought. For a moment, I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I knew for sure that he was going to die, I could… I dunno… stop it happening or something." Martha shook her head. "But that's just daft. I mean, I have no idea what's going to cause it in the first place. Nothing I can do right now."

Amy felt a chill go up her spine. Why had Martha and the younger Doctor been given that envelope? What part did they have to play in this crazy, convoluted mess?

Martha must have noticed Amy's unease, because she smiled back at her, reassuringly. "I'll talk to the Doctor about you, okay? I can't promise that he'll trust you completely, but I think I can convince him you're one of the good guys."

"You can't tell him—"

"I won't," said Martha. She laughed. "He might already know, anyways. It's not as if he'd tell us. He can talk for all of England, that man, but he never really _says_ anything."

"That's true," said Amy. Apparently, some things never changed.


	6. Chapter 6

Martha was off at work the next day, leaving the Doctor and Amy to investigate on their own. The Doctor was clearly trying to be nicer to Amy, although Amy could tell that he still didn't trust her. At the moment, he was walking down the street, Timey-Whimey Detector in hand, rambling on about whatever happened to be crossing his mind at the time.

Amy was trying to figure things out. Obviously, the future Doctor — the one who was shot on the beach — had sent her that envelope for a reason. Had he sent her there to witness the event so that she could go back and make sure it didn't happen? River said that wasn't possible, but watching this other Doctor, in 1969, leaving messages for a future Sally Sparrow in some crazy time-twisting paradoxical series of events, Amy felt a renewed sense of hope. Were these two situations actually the same? Could she really use her knowledge of the future to change it? Amy had no idea. It was the kind of question she'd normally ask the Doctor, except that this time, it was _about_ the Doctor, so she couldn't ask him anything. She glanced sidelong at the younger Doctor. She couldn't ask _her_ Doctor about changing his own future, but maybe she could ask this younger version.

The pinstripe Doctor was still rambling away about nothing, and Amy figured this was probably one of those situations where he was just expelling words until she interrupted him and gave him a chance to prove what a genius he was. She cleared her throat, and he stopped talking, waiting for her to go on.

“Doctor," she ventured. “If there was some sort of danger waiting for you… or anyone else, I mean… in their future, and you found out about it ahead of time, would there be some way to change it?”

"This have something to do with your friend?" asked the Doctor.

"No," said Amy, quickly. "I mean, you just said… you know, with that energy whatsit. I mean, if you knew that was you, you'd be able to change it, right? The future isn't set in stone."

"Sometimes it is," said the Doctor. "Sometimes there's nothing we can do about the future." He looked down at his trainers, a dark look passing across his face. “I've tried before, you know,” he said. “When I heard that prophecy on Krop-Tor. I tried everything. Everything I could think of. I even tried sending her away, but she just came back. In the end, the battle still happened, and I still lost her. I'll never see her again, Amy, and I knew it was going to happen. There was nothing I could do.”

Amy examined him, feeling a bit puzzled. Obviously, this was another incident where he knew his own future and couldn’t change it. She wondered who it was that he had lost. Why had her Doctor never told her about this? “So, you do know your own future, sometimes?” she asked.

“Inevitable, when you travel around time and space,” he said. “You're bound to catch a whiff of something going on in your future. Little glimpses, mostly. Tidbits, prophecies, that sort of thing. I don’t like to think about them too much. I guess I think that maybe, if I deny them, they won’t wind up being fixed points in time. That maybe, if I don't believe they'll happen, I can stop them.” He shook his head. "Stupid, stupid Doctor."

“Have you ever had a glimpse of a future that didn’t happen?” Amy asked.

“Around the war," he said. "The Time War, I mean, not — Vietnam or whatever it is you lot are fighting these days. But that's a bit different. A war like that rips apart time and space, so you're bound to get a bit of temporal shrapnel before and after the fact. Potential timelines that get twisted into reality, effects that still occur after their causes have been eradicated. That sort of thing. Saw a glimpse of a potential future-self back when I was still in my sixth incarnation, a future-self that can now never exist. Can't go back, after all; not now, not ever." He sighed, then tried to wipe the sorrow off his face. "Still! War's over and done with. Shouldn’t be any more of those lingering about.” He looked over at her. “Why?”

“My friend,” said Amy, cautiously. “Something happens to him in the future…”

“And you think you can change it?” asked the Doctor, raising an eyebrow. “Have you seen it happen? Were you there?”

Amy nodded.

“Then there’s nothing you can do,” said the Doctor. “And if you tell a younger him what you’ve seen, you’ll just set his fate in stone. Once you're a part of events, once you've started that chain reaction, you can never undo it. You can't reconfigure your own personal timeline.” Noticing her fallen expression, the Doctor gave her a sympathetic look. "Sorry," he said. "That's just how time works. Well, sort of. I mean, if you squint at it really hard and turn it over sideways and then dumb it down quite a lot."

"But there has to be a loophole or something," said Amy. "I mean, you're the Doctor. You can do anything!"

The Doctor's hands clenched a little tighter around the Timey-Whimey Detector. "If I could do anything, Amy," he said, "I wouldn't keep losing everything that ever mattered to me."

Amy just looked at the younger Doctor, feeling the desperation gnawing at her. Had this whole thing been a fluke? What if her own Doctor hadn't had a plan at all? What if the envelopes were just a coincidence? But no, that couldn't be. Amy wouldn't believe that the Doctor would just walk into his own death, not without some plan. She just needed to work out what that plan was.  
Chain reaction. That's what the earlier Doctor had said. Well, she didn't know what led to his death, but this was far enough in the Doctor's past that it must not have happened yet. Maybe she was sent here to meet the pinstripe Doctor and stop that entire chain of events from starting in the first place? She focused herself. Okay, this was simple. She just had to work out what chain of events would lead to the Doctor dying, and then make sure that this younger Doctor didn't start the chain.

She felt a chill run up her spine. Unless, she realized, she'd already messed up the universe by meeting this earlier him. Unless he'd been right all along, and she was the one to start the chain reaction off in the first place.

She was jolted out of her thoughts by the tiny ding sound of the Timey-Whimey Detector. The Doctor looked down at the device, a broad grin washing across his face. He looked at Amy, and that twinkle in his eye looked so achingly familiar. So much like her own Doctor. She looked away. Where was he now? What had the government done to him? What would those creatures do to him?

“Come on,” shouted the Doctor in the pinstripe suit, as he raced down the street. “Don’t dawdle. Allons-y!”

Amy raced after the flapping brown trench coat, trying to keep up. She was used to running for her life with the Doctor, but she still found herself getting tired and breathless far sooner than she had expected. Perhaps it was the pregnancy? But no — she hadn’t really been pregnant. She’d worked that one out already. So why…? She couldn’t see the Doctor anymore, just the crowds of people on the London streets. She wondered where he’d gone. Perhaps this was her chance for escape? But with a broken mobile, a nonfunctioning vortex manipulator, and no money, she knew she wouldn’t get far. She probably didn’t even look sane at the moment, with all those marks on her arms.

She didn’t notice anything had changed until she felt someone take her hand. She looked up, and there was the pinstripe Doctor again, a worried look on his face. He tugged her along, muttering things she couldn’t quite pick up.

“What is it?” Amy asked.

“Bad,” said the Doctor. He tugged her a little faster, and Amy almost tripped over her own feet. “Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Think as bad as things can get and then add some extra lashings of bad on top.”

“Worse than…?”

“Yes,” the Doctor cut in.

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" Amy protested.

"Doesn't matter," said the Doctor. "Still worse." He tugged her down a back alley, and backed himself against the wall, his eyes closed. He looked as if he was concentrating very hard.

Amy tried to work out what the Doctor was running from. Knowing the Doctor — her Doctor, at least — she figured it was some terrible alien monster, or maybe even a Dalek. But she couldn't see anything like that. The Doctor’s eyes snapped wide open, and he suddenly turned around.

“Run!” he said.

Amy hadn’t realized that the Doctor could run so fast. She was practically being dragged along behind him, her feet barely hitting the ground. He skidded down back alleys, through shops, up and down flights of stairs, you name it. Eventually, he landed them inside an abandoned office which appeared to have no other obvious escape routes. The Doctor locked the door with his sonic screwdriver, and started piling items in front of the door. Amy was hoping she could get a chance to catch her breath.

The Doctor looked back at her and, as if reading her thoughts, dashed all her hopes in an instant. “That won’t hold him for long,” said the Doctor.

“Hold who?” Amy asked.

“Nobody,” said the Doctor, a little too quickly. “Just…" He stopped, closed his eyes, and screwed up his face. "Oh, that can't be good," he murmured.

Amy put her hands on her hips, and gave him her best 'you better tell me what the hell is going on' look. "Doctor, who are we hiding from?" she demanded.

"Just… well, it's um… a bit… sort of…" muttered the Doctor. He scratched the back of his neck. "Me. It's me. We're hiding from me."

Amy stared at him. "What?" she asked. She was starting to get a hopeful feeling buzzing through her. What if it was her own Doctor? No, but it wasn't. It couldn't be. Amy knew that already. After all, her own Doctor was in Area 51.

"Well, another me," said the Doctor. "Past or future. Not sure which. Probably better to hide, though. Best I don't run into him."

"Why?" asked Amy.

"Why? Why? You ever met yourself before, 'Just Amy'? It starts off being socially awkward, soon turns horribly embarrassing, and eventually, you discover —"

Amy gazed at the spot beside her, where the shadows had draped across the empty wall and the abandoned Timey-Whimey Detector. Then she looked around. The Doctor was gone. It was as if he had just disappeared. What had happened? Had she blinked? Had he been taken by another Weeping Angel? She stepped out of her hiding place, noticing the open door. It hadn't been open before, and she was sure that she would have heard someone breaking in. She had that familiar queasy feeling in her stomach again. She looked down.

Sure enough, there was another mark on her arm.

She was about to venture forward to look for the Doctor, when a cough from behind her made her stop in her tracks. It was a cough she recognized, a sound so familiar to her that she instinctively felt her eyes watering. She turned around and there, in the doorway, was the familiar shape of a thin man with floppy brown hair and a black bow-tie.

“Doctor!” Amy cried, and flung her arms around him.

The Doctor returned the hug, patting her back in a soothing manner. She released him, and looked into his eyes. The ones she remembered, the ones that were filled with trust and admiration and just a hint of worry whenever they saw her. She was definitely crying now.

“I thought that Delaware got you,” she said. “I thought you were in Area 51.”

The Doctor made his usual guilty face. “Um, yes, I am, actually,” he confessed. “Or rather, my younger-self is.”

Amy stepped back. “Oh, no,” she said. “You’re the 1,103 year old one.”

The Doctor gave her an offended look. “1,102!” he protested.

She looked at the empty office building around her, then back at the eldest Doctor. “Just how many of you are there in 1969?”

“A lot,” confessed the Doctor. “Probably shouldn't be here, actually. Bit hard to explain. Not a lot of time and too much to do.” He glanced around, as if to make sure the coast was clear, then stretched out his hand. “Phone?”

Amy handed him her phone, and he whipped out his sonic screwdriver — the one she was used to, with the clasp at the top and the green tipped light. He opened up the back of her phone, and started buzzing at it.

"Doctor, did I just mess up the universe or something?" asked Amy. "You didn't know me at all when we first met. But if I met the last you, then you would have…"

"Amy, when I first met you, I'd just regenerated," said the Doctor, handing her back her phone. It now appeared to be in working order. "Synapses were all mixed up. We could have been friends for years and I still might not have recognized you." He then grabbed her arm, and buzzed the vortex manipulator with the sonic. Amy knew what was coming next.

“No, wait, Doctor,” Amy protested. “You have to tell me…”

But before she could finish her sentence, she had been pulled back into the vortex, and was on her way to her next destination.


	7. Chapter 7

"Why? Why? You ever met yourself before, 'Just Amy'? It starts off being socially awkward, soon turns horribly embarrassing, and eventually, you discover that all your other-selves are pompous, arrogant, self-important…" He trailed off, noticing that Amy was not listening to him. She was staring out at the empty office, her eyes wide with fear.

“Amy?” he asked.

She said nothing, but taking a pen out of her pocket, she added another tick mark onto her arm.

The Doctor's eyes widened as the penny dropped. He looked over, and sure enough, one of those Silence creatures was standing in the middle of the room. If these creatures could influence a Time Lord mind, what else could they influence? Could they shield another Time Lord's mental contact? Were they holding the other Time Lord prisoner, somewhere in 1969?

The Doctor stepped out of the shadows, leaving the Timey-Whimey Detector for the moment. He needed to get some answers from this creature. He needed to find out what the Face of Boe meant.

But before he had a chance to do anything, he heard the familiar buzz of a Sonic Screwdriver from behind the locked door, and felt the familiar brush of his own mental signature against his mind. Now, there was a pickle. The moment this creature left the Doctor's sight, the Doctor would forget that he had some other-self about to break into the room. He'd probably wind up bumping right into himself, and that was certainly not a good idea. "Great timing, me," he muttered, getting up.

He was about to grab Amy's arm and drag her along, but remembered how pale and exhausted she'd looked when he'd dragged her in there. Perhaps Martha was right. Perhaps Amy really was pregnant. The Doctor hesitated, but decided to leave Amy there. Other-him would look after her while current-him tried to get that creature to give him some answers.

The Silence, hearing the hum of the Sonic Screwdriver, suddenly bolted through the room, and the Doctor sprinted after it. He chased it down a long, winding corridor, up and down two flights of stairs and around three other offices before he caught up. He tackled it to the floor. It just looked back at him curiously, almost mockingly.

"Right," said the Doctor. "I've had enough games and riddles. I want answers, and I want them now. There's someone else here, in 1969. Some other Time Lord. Who is it?"

"I wouldn't bother," came a friendly-sounding voice from behind him. "They're not exceptionally chatty individuals. But they do seem to be everywhere in 1969. A bit like us, really. There's got to be at least six to eight different versions of us here. And Three's due to show up in about seven months to irritate the Brigadier."

The Doctor sighed. He knew _that_ mental energy signature too well. "Past or future?"

"Future," said the Eleventh Doctor, as he ducked down in front of his former self. He had a long length of rope in his hands, and handed the end to the Tenth Doctor. "Here. Hold this."

In a matter of minutes, the two of them managed to tie up the Silence quite thoroughly.

"Dangerous little buggers, then, are they?" asked Ten. "I'm surprised, if they're Time Lord hunting, that they haven't gone after us, yet."

"Well, you know," said Eleven. "Our lives are always a bit… wibbly-wobbly…"

"Timey-whimey," continued Ten. He grinned. "Ha! That explains a lot. 'Not ready,' it told me. Just like those clockwork droids, checking the mile-o-meter." His face fell, and he grimaced. "Not me, so it must be you they're after."

"Pretty much, yeah," admitted Eleven.

"What did you do to…? No, wait," said Ten. "I don't want to know."

"Quite right," said Eleven. "Never good to know too much about our future." He patted the Silence on the head. "Hence our lovely little friend over here. He needs a name. Everybody should have a name, don't you think? I think I'll call him Joe. Just keep Joe in sight at all times, and you won't remember any of this."

Ten tried to keep Joe in his line of vision as he examined his future self. His future self was wearing suspenders, a black bow-tie, and a long, dark green greatcoat. Ten raised an eyebrow. "So when, exactly, do we start dressing like Captain Jack?"

Eleven straightened his bow-tie. "I thought it was rather stylish, myself," said Eleven. "Richard Nixon didn't have a problem with it."

Ten blew a breath out of his cheeks. "Believe it or not, you're not inspiring me with confidence about my future. We get chummy with Richard Nixon at some point?"

"Could have been worse," protested Eleven.

"Yeah," said Ten. "We could have saved Hitler."

Eleven said nothing.

"Oh, we didn't?" said Ten.

"If it's any consolation, it was an accident," said Eleven. He hesitated. "And by the end of it all, I did wind up wearing the tux."

Eleven and Ten exchanged looks.

"Blame it on the tux?" proposed Ten.

"I'm going to blame it on the tux," agreed Eleven.

"Definitely the tux," said Ten. His eyes flicked down to the bow-tie. "Course, wearing that bow-tie around, it's any wonder the universe hasn't ended —"

"Are you going to say that every time we meet?" asked Eleven.

Ten raised his eyebrows. "Oh, so this us-meeting-bit is going to wind up being a regular thing?"

"Um…" said Eleven. He gave a fake smile. "Can I plead spoilers?"

"Fine," said Ten. He ran a hand through his hair. "All right, out with it. You're the one who sent me that envelope, so you must have wanted me here for a reason. This is about the massive Artron energy surge in seven months, isn't it? Your companion, Amy, didn't know anything about it, but knowing us, we've probably already worked it out and we've just not told her yet."

"Actually, we didn't work it out, but I'm from Amy's future," said Eleven. "Or at least that particular Amy. She's good, isn't she?"

"Very good," said Ten. "Pregnant?"

Eleven took in a sharp breath. "That's… a bit complicated," said Eleven. His whole body tensed, and his voice got a little edgy. The Tenth Doctor read the body language like a book. Something bad was going to happen, something related to Amy's possible-pregnancy, and Eleven hadn't been able to stop it. "It's really best that you don't think about Amy. Not until you're me, at any rate."

"She's travelled in your Tardis recently, though, hasn't she?" asked Ten. "Never had a pregnant woman onboard the Tardis before. You don't think…?"

"Just don't worry about pregnancies inside the Tardis!" snapped Eleven. "Forget you ever heard anything weird about pregnant women in the vortex. It doesn't come up in this incarnation, so forget it!" Eleven breathed deeply, and calmed himself down.

Ten gave him a sympathetic look. "Touchy subject?"

"You could say that," said Eleven, a little sheepishly. "Sorry. Nerves are a little all-over-the-place at the moment. Just busted out of Whitehall naked pursued by an angry Charles II. Talk about a man without a sense of humor."

"We've always been pretty rubbish with monarchs," said the Tenth Doctor.

"Yeah," said Eleven. "Look, point I'm making is, this whole Silence, energy spike, time-travelling psychopath thing… this doesn't concern you. It's all a bit of temporal… timey-whimey-ness."

"Time-travelling psychopath?" asked Ten.

Eleven winced. "Probably shouldn't have mentioned that," he admitted. "Not good to know too much about your own future. Like you said. Or did I say that? Maybe it was Winston Churchill."

"Good old Winston," said Ten. "How's he doing?"

"Still chugging away, brilliant as ever," said Eleven. He shook his head. "Sorry, can't get distracted. Could talk to myself all day. Do, in fact. First sign of madness."

" _First_ sign? Few lifetimes late for that."

Eleven grinned. "Mad man in a box, that's us," he said. "Point is, whatever you do, do not go to New York in January of 1970. Do not witness that Artron surge. It has nothing to do with the Face of Boe, and it has nothing to do with any of the things you're doing now." He paused. "Oh, and you can go ahead and ignore the one in World War II as well."

"I thought that spike was because of…"

"Trust me, there are _a lot_ of time travelers wandering around World War II," said the Eleventh Doctor. "It's not all Jack. Although… Jack does wind up being there twice…."

"Typical," said the Tenth Doctor. "Don’t tell me he tries to…."

"If he does, I don't want to know!" said Eleven.

"So you brought me to 1969 so that you could tell me not to worry about the things I'm seeing now that I'm in 1969?" asked Ten. "That's a bit daft, even for us."

"Yeah, bit more complicated than that, as I said," said the Eleventh Doctor. "Just let me take care of the Silence, and the Artron energy, and Amy, and whatnot. You go on and forget about the Silence. Focus on Sally Sparrow and finding your Tardis."

"And after this conversation is over, and I turn around and stop looking at good old Fred here…"

"Joe."

"Good old Joe here," corrected the Tenth Doctor, "I'll forget everything you just said. But I'll still remember Amy and her monsters and all the temporal scavengers and the massive Artron surge. So… what? Do I leave a note? Memory trigger? Preprogrammed squirrel that snaps at me any time I get within a hundred feet of New York in January of 1970?"

"Give me some credit, here," complained Eleven. "Genius, remember? I've worked this all out ahead of time. See, our pal Joe doesn't just wipe your memory. He's also a whiz at psychic conditioning."

"What?" exclaimed the Tenth Doctor. "On a Time Lord brain? But that's impossible!"

"Not impossible," said the Eleventh Doctor. "Just a bit unlikely."

"It's like this whole thing is just a trap for…"

"Yeah, that's another thing you should forget about," said Eleven, quickly. "Just, you know. Spoilers. And whatnot. Listen, whatever you do, don't investigate that Artron surge in seven months. At least not until you're me."

"So you're psychically conditioning me to forget all the stuff I'm not supposed to worry about?" asked Ten.

"Yep!" said Eleven. "Pretty clever, don't you think?"

Ten considered this. "You do realize that if you screw this up and say the wrong thing, you might wind up conditioning me to forget something essential to our future."

"Yeah, thought about that, but the consequences of not conditioning you would be worse," said Eleven. "You know, given that…" he trailed off.

"Given that what?" asked Ten.

"Given that it's you," confessed Eleven.

"I'm sorry?" said Ten. "Are you implying something? What makes me so special?"

"No, nothing, you're just… already in 1969," said Eleven.

"There are a bunch of us in 1969," Ten replied. "Epic year. The moon landing, the last Beatles concert, the first episode of Scooby-doo. Like you said, six to eight of us here, at least. You send all the rest of them envelopes, too?"

"And you're looking for other Time Lords," said Eleven.

"That's hardly exclusive," muttered Ten.

"And you're mildly suicidal."

"I'm what?!" exclaimed the Tenth Doctor. "What in the Seven Systems would lead you to believe…?"

"Oh, honestly," said Eleven, exasperated. "That stint with the Racnoss on Christmas? Oh, and not to mention screaming at a Dalek that you're the Doctor and 'please exterminate me, if you'd be so kind'? If that's not a suicide attempt, then I don't know what is."

"Fine, then," said the Tenth Doctor. "So you're hunting down your more suicidal incarnations and psychically conditioning them to stay away from a death-trap from their future involving Time Lords and psychopaths."

"Basically, yes," said Eleven. "And you fit the bill."

"Psychopathic Time Lords," Ten mused. He groaned. "Oh, no. It's not the Master again, is it? Don't tell me the Master's in 1969."

"The Master is not in 1969," said the Eleventh Doctor, carefully keeping his face blank.

"Well, thank the universe for small mercies," muttered Ten. "Proverbial bad penny, that one. Even after you kill him, he just keeps showing up."

"We still miss him a bit, though, don't we?" asked Eleven.

Ten shrugged, a crooked half smile on his face. "S'pose you can't have someone hating you that much for that long and not develop _some_ relationship with them, however messed up that relationship may be."

"Yes," said the Eleventh Doctor, thinking of a different psychopath. "I suppose it's inevitable."

Ten's smile dropped. "Not really sure why the Master came to mind. Odd, that. Probably because we're so close to the seventies. Never thought I'd miss him, though." He frowned, then gave his counterpart an irritated look. "I suppose you'll say that's the suicidal part of my personality shining through?"

The Eleventh Doctor now had the kind of deep sorrow and pity in his eyes that made Ten decide he really, _really_ didn't want to know what lay in his future. "Pretty much, yeah," said Eleven, his voice completely flat and emotionless. Then, just as suddenly, the expression was gone, and Eleven was back to his beaming, nonchalant self. He stood up, and clapped his hands. "Well, better be going. Sent Amy off on her way already, so best not worry about her. Say hello to Martha for me."

"Hold on, aren't you forgetting something?" asked the Tenth Doctor.

Eleven froze. "What sort of something?" he asked.

"Well, if you're looking for incarnations of us that are in 1969, feeling suicidal, and desperately looking for other Time Lords, I'm pretty sure you've overlooked someone pretty important."

Eleven thought about this for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "Just after the war…"

"Exactly," said Ten.

Eleven began running to the door. "I've got to go," he said.

"By the end of this, you'll wind up sending little blue envelopes to all thirteen of us!" Ten shouted after him. Then he was gone, and Ten was left alone with the Silence that his future self had named Joe. Ten stared at Joe. Psychic conditioning, huh? He hoped that Eleven hadn't just done something incredibly thick. If 1969 and the Silence was a trap for him, the Tenth Doctor had the feeling he'd just doomed himself to walk right into it. The Tenth Doctor sighed.

"Like I said before," he said to Joe. "Never good to meet your other selves."

Joe didn't say anything.

The Tenth Doctor shrugged, and turned away, thus sealing his fate.


	8. Chapter 8

The End.

(This is not a chapter, I just don't know how to delete it).


End file.
